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Thursday, November 28, 2013

Iran deal a failure, says ex-national security chief, Yaakov Amidror

Yaakov Amidror

The former head of the Israeli National Security Council
took to the pages of The New York Times to rail against the nuclear deal
between world powers and Iran, calling the accord a diplomatic failure that
missed the mark in diverting Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.

In an opinion piece published Thursday, Yaakov Amidror
listed the reasons the agreement, signed in Geneva at the beginning of the
week, had failed to achieve anything significant.

“Iran made only cosmetic concessions to preserve its primary
goal, which is to continue enriching uranium,” he wrote. “The agreement
represents a failure, not a triumph, of diplomacy.”

According to the terms of the agreement, some of the
international sanctions currently imposed on Iran are to be eased, a move
Amidror said would bring a rush of foreign business to Iran leading to the
collapse of all the economic restrictions against the Islamic Republic.

“Might economic relief, reduced isolation and new goodwill
lead to greater pressure on the Iranian regime to reach a fuller agreement
later?” he asked. “I doubt it… Anyone who has conducted business or diplomatic
negotiations knows that you don’t reduce the pressure on your opponent on the
eve of negotiations. Yet that is essentially what happened in Geneva.”

Amidror’s remarks in The New York Times came amid heightened
tension between the US and Israel over how to thwart Iran’s nuclear program.
Netanyahu voiced staunch opposition to compromising with Iran in the run-up to
the Geneva talks, and called the deal world powers signed earlier this week a
“historic mistake.” Obama, without naming Netanyahu, then criticized the “tough
talk and bluster” from critics of the deal.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote Thursday that
as negotiations move forward to solidify the interim agreement with Iran,
Israel remains a “wild card,” and called Netanyahu’s outspoken dismissal of the
agreement “clamorous criticism.”

“Obama has asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take a
breather from his clamorous criticism and send to Washington a team that can
explore with US officials a sound end-state strategy,” Ignatius wrote. “Perhaps
the United States and Israel need a back channel, outside the bombastic pressure
campaign by Israeli advocates.”

The prime minister’s former national security adviser, who
stepped down earlier this month, claimed that under the terms of the deal Iran
will be able to maintain its thousands of centrifuges and even work on
upgrading them just so long at they are not installed in uranium enrichment
plants. In practice, that means Iran’s uranium enrichment capability will
remain at its current level, meaning it would be available for use whenever
Tehran needs it.

Israeli sources quoted in a Maariv report Thursday morning
contended that the measures Tehran agreed to would only set its back by two
weeks should it attempt to manufacture a nuclear weapon. “Should the Iranians
decide to ignore the understandings reached with world powers in Geneva, they
can enrich the low-enriched uranium they have to military levels and acquire
the fissile material necessary for a bomb within just over a month,” the paper
reported.

To compound the problem further, the agreement signed
between Iran and the US, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany does not
require Tehran to reduce its stockpiles of 3.5% enriched uranium which, Amidror
assessed, is already two-thirds of the way to bomb-making material.

“Given the thousands of centrifuges Iran has, the regime can
enrich its stock of low-level uranium to weapons-grade quality in a matter of
months,” Amidror wrote. “Iran already has enough of this material to make four
bombs.”

Although the US has the weapons needed to take out Iran’s
nuclear program, Western allies find the idea of using them abhorrent, Amidror
argued.

“While the Obama administration maintains that the military
option is still on the table in case Iran does not comply with the new
agreement, that threat is becoming less and less credible,” he said.

However, without the pressure that sanctions offered, that
theoretical military option may become all that stands in the way of
nuclear-equipped Iran, he speculated.

“The West has surrendered its most effective diplomatic tool
in exchange for baseless promises of goodwill. I pray its gamble pays off, for
if it does not there will be only one tool left to prevent Iran from getting a
nuclear weapon.”